Shadowrun: A Game of Drones

Thanyalak on the Prowl

Blood dripped from her chin to her chest. Thanyalak ignored this, as she ignored the alien pavement under her bare feet, the city smell on her bare skin. She walked on with little regard for the man left screaming behind her. It hadn’t been smooth, but it was what they wanted, a deal she hadn’t given a moment’s thought going into. What was the point? Power was power.

Still, was this what she was now? Eating hands for hire? Eating when she wasn’t hungry, wasting the blood that spilled from the corners of her mouth? Using what she was to frighten people she had no interest in for reasons she’d already forgotten?

She was bored, and shook her head. The blood, now slowing to an ooze, trailed across the line of her throat, tickled her collarbone. People asked her to do things, and she no longer remembered why she did them.

Her chin was now slick with red. If she had any knowledge of movies, she might have realized she looked like something out of a bad horror flick, red from the mouth down, and horribly horribly humanoid. Naked, bloody, and indifferently padding along the dirty sidewalk. Nobody bothered her. But, then, nobody ever did. Why had she come to this city again? Was there some reason or just a whim?

It was that, like the Chinese men she had just eaten a man’s hand for. Whim or what seemed to be happening at the moment. But this was what humans did. At least, this is what they seemed to do, to her. Take jobs and … do things. For things. Even if it didn’t make you happy, even if it didn’t keep you full. She had wanted to understand, when she first crawled out of the jungle. She’d wanted to understand these creatures that wanted to destroy her world.

But now she simply didn’t care. She hadn’t cared for a long time.

Thanyalak didn’t often think about such things. Life for her was the moment. The prey ,the game, the people she sometimes called her friends. It was easy to live one minute at a time, and follow the instincts that had up until she left the trees served her well.

The pain was meaningless now, of course. Being shot, being stabbed, being blown up. Meaningless, and by now, quite boring.

A woman huddled against the dark on her way home happened to look up at the wrong moment, seeing the monstrosity of blood and skin that was Thanyalak, and her terrified squeal just made the Tigress growl. She could chase her, this woman who ran, because the tiger in her said she should, but the human part of her, the part that had become so confusing and boring lately, asked her what that would accomplish.

No, she wasn’t hungry, no need to hunt. Blood had left tracks between her breasts now, over her abdomen. A reminder, perhaps, of how well fed she was now, to eat men’s hands for gain. Still if that was all it took.

She shrugged to herself. Sarah would not approve of this. Time to go home.

Two days after the first reports on an Amazonian attack on the Aztlaner city of Cali, reports are finally starting to emerge from the secretive war zone. According to sources on the ground, a Western Great Dragon tentatively identified as Sirrurg has assaulted the local Aztlan military base and facilities. Trid recordings of the incident show him leading a large-scale attack, composed of a half dozen other feathered serpents, a dozen or so wyverns, and a large horde of drakes, spirits, lindworms as well as various well-known (some say, infamous) members of GreenWar and mercenaries for hire. The overwhelming surprise attack on the military base turned into an Aztlaner bloodbath.

The locals reported that the attack lasted for three straight hours. Tens of thousands of rounds were fired during that time, and many were fired randomly at the airborne attackers, which ended up doing more damage to the city than the actual attackers. Tanks were heard ring their salvos at the dragons. Hundreds of mortars were fired. The thousands of Aztlan soldiers who were stationed at the base sought in vain for some type of sanctuary from the rage and the destruction that bore down upon them, but found none as they were torn into pieces by the raging dracoforms.

Some of the security footage, hacked from the base’s nodes and released on the Matrix, showed that several dozen Aztlan soldiers, after it had become apparent that they were fighting a hopeless battle, tried to surrender to the feathered serpent’s forces. In the
trid footage, the surrendering soldiers were massacred at Sirrurg’s whim, and the big lizard indicated no interest in showing mercy to the metahumans. All the buildings on the base were ripped apart and left in shambles. Pieces of metahuman bodies were left to rot. By the time reinforcements reached the base, Aztlan had lost up to five thousand troops and tens of millions of nuyen worth of military equipment.

Unfortunately the casualties would not be limited to the Aztlan base, as Sirrurg chose to cast one final spell before leaving Cali. Drone and security cameras, at 12:58 pm on June 18,
2073, caught a brilliant ash of blue light that enveloped a great portion of the business districts of the city. When exposed to the blast, people in the blast radius simply dropped dead. It didn’t matter what metatype they were or even how old they were; they just dropped. None of the structures or any of the plant life in the area seemed affected. It took weeks just to figure out how many people died, but the final tally said that in those few seconds, close to another ten thousand people died from the magical assault.

> From what I have learned, I can speculate that the magic Sirrurg used was either fueled by or was tied directly into his inherent ability to alter fate. I have acquired many of the autopsy ﬁles of the people that died in that attack (including a couple of close friends), and it seems as though each person died of a speciﬁc condition that they would have eventually died from based on their genetic proﬁles. We’re talking about the sudden onset of heart attacks in people who were otherwise currently healthy, aneurysms that previously there were no signs of a weakness in those arteries, respiratory disorders, cancers, genetic disorders; conditions and diseases that were not an immediate problem for the person but could have become a problem in the future had those genetic conditions not been treated. This magic abruptly triggered and accelerated all these conditions in all those people. Simultaneously. And no one was immune from those effects, not even newborn children that had just barely begun their lives.

> Frosty

> The loss of life in that attack is staggering but some good did come out of it. In all the chaos, Amazonia forces crossed the border and entered Cali a few days after this devastating attack. Aztlan had not had the time to completely recover from the loss and was easily forced out. Cali has become the ﬁrst major city in this war to fall to
Amazonia. And Amazonia is digging in.

It's all fun and games until you start counting the bodies.

Snoopy raises his arm mechanically, slams down another burning shot of whiskey. He waves the glass at the bartender, who pauses, frowns.
“No trouble tonight, okay? Not again.”
“Just fill the fucking glass and I’ll go”, Snoopy mumbles. The bartender gives him the evil eye for a moment, then uncorks the bottle and pours up to the brim. Snoopy mumbles thanks and presses his card to the reader, adding his customary generous tip. Charge it to the room. Run up the tab.
He stumbles out of the hotel bar and rides the elevator up to his suite in a drooling daze. Home for the last few days has been an anonymous room in a pricey chain hotel in… Wait, where is he? What fucking city is this? Am I in Bangkok? London? No, wait… Berlin?
He can’t remember, doesn’t care. He’s been staying in identical hotels in a half dozen countries for the last month or two, seldom leaving his room. He arrives in each city hung over or drunk, and within a few hours has scored a variety of drugs and BTLs. He isn’t fussy. Anything to stop the dreams, block out the memories.

The one that really gets him is the face of the woman who had been in the next car. He’d been so focused on trying to remotely get all three of his vehicles in to position around the target truck that he hadn’t been paying much attention to the other traffic. The three SUVs were all primed to explode, a high-ex grenade in each gas tank. The three mercs in the target truck… well, Snoopy would have preferred to do this without killing, but the mercs signed up for this kind of risk, and they wouldn’t hesitate to put bullets in to him and his team. And he did very much want to get paid, without getting shot. Killing in order to steal. Killing for money, even if it wasn’t straight wetwork. This is the new reality.Snoopy’s moral compass has been spinning a little wild of late.

Right at the last second, even as he wirelessly triggered the grenades he glanced at the sensor feed that showed the outside lane of the highway. Another SUV, a family car. Woman in the front seat, staring at the bomb-car. Kids watching cartoons in the back. Snoopy watched them die.

A dozen civilians. Three mercs in the truck. Another six on the boat – Snoopy didn’t pull the trigger on those, but still. Hong Kong, and that felonious, blood-soaked clusterfuck in Seattle right before, marked a categorical change in his shadowrunning career. Whoever he’d been when he started the Life, this is who he is now – a killer and thief. He is going to have to learn to live with that. So far, it isn’t going well.

He isn’t completely off the wall, not yet. Most days, he hits the hotel gym, works on coding problems, studies game theory. He solders new parts in to his deck, builds or upgrades other pieces of gear, works a little online. Quitting the shadowrunner life is not an option; he is committed now, and when the call for the next job comes, he’ll be ready. The only ways out of the Life now are getting rich, or getting dead. He will keep trying to get rich, but he knows a part of his soul is gone now for good.

Da Hoodians

Deciding that he’d rather see the sites than hang out with the zoo, Jostein headed down town on his supped up custom built Mirage that their sponsor had kindly shipped over. The sextuple exhaust system purring merrily as he cut through the night traffic. He didn’t need a Sat Nav or guide book to lead him where he wanted to go, not they would have had it listed anyway he cruised the night roads looking for the tell tale signs that would point him towards the local street scene…and probably the local Triad crew too. He’d polished up on his local lingo and had a few key phrases sorted out. “什麼他媽的你在看?” and “我們的賽車還是什麼”?"

Reality was he needed to get away from the zoo for a while, they were getting a little too close, too human. A couple of days wrecking up the streets of HK and running down some of the little fuckers should see him straight…or at least help him unwind. Granted the 5 Star pad he’d booked for the next few days was also helping, room service was…..hot.

A couple of hours of learning the streets and watching other bikes go by he latched on to an elf riding some kind of tricked out street racer, looked like it belonged in a kids play ground, pretty colours and go faster stripes all over the damn thing , he was tempted to cut the animal up right then and there…but decided he’d had enough of cruising and it was time to get down to some serious racing.

It didn’t tale long for the Elf to lead him where he expected and soon he was among crowds of Chinese bikers and the smell of all kinds of strange street food. He spotted a crew of likely lads and headed over to say hi…..

…it was a short conversation, he decided not to use his key phrases and they were suitably impressed by his bike that the language of beer was all that was needed. A couple of hours were spent chilling and watching. Bikes, Babes, Bikes…..and the animals. Yea this place was ripe….time to get culling.

Like any meet anywhere in the world, the last ride of the night was the “anything goes within reason”. Or in other words no hacking, no magic and no big guns or automatics. The blades being carried by some of the bikers left little to the imagination as to what would happen if you rode a little to close to one of those on a sharp corner.

He had the local crew, who’s name he’d decided was something like “Da Hood” or “Da Hoodians” or something like that, quickly understand what Jostein wanted . Signed up ready to roll, side bets being placed by the bucket load. Jostein didn’t bother with the betting, heck he’d never know who to ask for his money, he trused “Da Hooligans” or what ever to make good if he won.

It was a small field. just 5 other bikes. 2 Humans, an elf, an orc and something that may or may not have been and orc. Or Orc Elf crossbreed, ugly bastard. Strangely all the usual street banter was missing. Shit the Elf looked like he’d rather not be racing…..sad bastard!! The bikes all looked pretty standard in the way they were modified, but it was hard to know what was really hidden in the machinery until after you won it and took it. A pretty little thing trotted out, waved around her arse and the flag dropped. Jostein was slow off the mark as he was distracted….Damn it was only 4-5 hours since he’d had room service!!! Must be something in the air…and 3 seconds after everyone else was off, the Mirage smoothly lept down the road.

Six laps , one per entry, of a point to point race, no designated route, just pass the markers in the right order, pretty straight forward. At least it would have been back home…here not knowing the roads, it was going to be….interesting!

Being at the back meant he could tag along and plan for later laps , on the downside it also meant he was the target for every oil dump, mini mine, caltrop and over the shoulder shot that was aimed at anyone behind anyone else, it added to the fun if nothing else.

Three laps in Jostein was still cruising at the back, he’d passed two wrecks already, the Elf was walking away from his wipe out, one of the humans looked like he was going to need a whole new spine by the way he was wrapped around the post his body had hit…. too bad…that was two bikes that were only be going to be good as scrap to the winner.

By Lap five, he was getting a bit fed up with the need to dodge crap and decided it was time to even things up a bit, kicking into gear he inched closer and closer to the bike in front, a nice clean street bike, no silly colours or other junk, a real bikers bike, too bad really. As he pulled along side Jostein late fate take over. Locking in the auto speeder, he let go the handle bars and flicked a small steel bolt at the other riders face plate. There was a sharp crack as the bolt punched through, and probably took out a few teeth. And then there was a screeching of metal, sparks and bike parts going in all directions and the rider went out of control and hit the road hard….he’d walk away from that at least…..or crawl anyway. Heck it was a the other human, Jostein didn’t want him hurt too badly!

Three down two to go, time to get serious Orc and Cross Breed left. How the orc was keeping the speed on his big cruiser was something Jostein was keen to find out . What ever zoo he came from, those orcs had worked some serious magic on that bike…and Jostein wanted to take a look at it.

Final lap and Jostein was starting to wonder if the race was actually going to start, catching the leading pair had proven a tad too easy, neither was really pushing it, and even now, when things should have been hotting up they were just cruising, orc in front, half breed tucked in behind…. the orc doing nothing to shake him….. reality hit Jostein at the same time as the nail gun opened up from the crossbreeds bike. A fraction slower on grounding the bike and he’d have been looking at some serious damage to his upper leathers..as it was a 20 foot slide took all the paint work and most of the leather off his left side. A quick flick and he was back up…and pissed. The orc had moved ahead and Cross Breed was weaving a pattern that filled the air with the hiss of nails. Enough of that shit. It was time for karma to kick in, and Karma was a bitch!

Hitting top speed Jostein burst through the spray of nails with only a few scratches to account for and hit the auto speeder right as he came up behind Crossbreed. Parkour came in handy at the strangest times …standing up he leapt onto the back of crossbreeds bike and with a swift sweep of his hands separated the bastards head from his body…easy bit done he almost screwed up the back flip back onto his own bike…granted, the back flip wasn’t really needed…but hey…someone may have been watching!

The orc was easy to catch…nothing speedy about that cruiser after all, just the handy partner with a nail gun to slow down the rest of the field. Indeed the orc looked mildly surprised and rather pissed as Jostein flipped him….her….it…who fucking knows ….the finger and swept in front.

Now Trolls may tell you different, but getting shot by a shot gun hurts. and while he’d been expecting a gun shot, and been weaving like a demon, a shot gun is harder to avoid, especially when you’re show boating. Biker leathers, what was left of them, stopped the worst of it…but yea that was going to sting for a while.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw the Orc reach into a side bag and pull out something that was reasonably small…but was chain fed back inside the side bag!!! This was not going to be pleasant!!! Jostein started to accelerate just as the orc got his little gun sorted out…a few test bursts sprayed the road to the left….and Jostein sadly realized that there was not going to be a nice second place bike to claim at this race, only 5 wrecks.

Jostein stopped weaving. looked over his shoulder, braked and there was a soft pop from the back of the bike. The orc’s manic grin bore down on Jostein, it was holding fire to make sure it was right on top of him for the killing shot….and then the top of its head came off and the manic grin became the instant glazed look of a lobotomized ape, the corner came…and the ape went straight into the wall…. seriously who the fuck has a sextuple exhaust system!

The run back to the finishing line was dull. This was not how races were meant to be won. But anyway better please the crowd, banging up to top speed he ploughed across the finishing line came through lovely 180 spin to dead stop and ripped his helmet off to listen to the applause… apart from there wasn’t one…there was just dead silence, tinged with a nervousness that said “This shit is about to get real…I should leave….but damn I want to watch too!”

This was probably not the best time for Jostein to use a choice phrase…“什麼他媽的你在看?” Or something like that… a large goon decided Jostein had been talking to him and steeped forward to making various arm waving, finger crossing and crotch grabbing motions…probably gang related. The octagon shaped tattoo on his chest looked too much like a target for Jostein to resist and a button suddenly took the goon in the chest hard enough to crack several ribs and send him to the floor in pain….. and then it was on!

Walking back to the hotel later that night, Jostein had time to ponder on whether the guys with the Red Eye tattoo were pleased he’d taken out Mr Octagon or not, the ensuing fight had started off with fists and quickly accelerated to knives, staves and all kinds of cool shit that Jostein had only ever seen before in movies…he had a bag full of it now! Either way hammer time had arrived and Jostein soon saw that his likely lads had sided with the Red Eye crew against 3 to 5 other groupings, it was hard to say how many to be honest…. Just when it was going well and Jostein had made his way to the boys, some one decided to steal his bike… back in Seattle everyone on the biker scene would know that that was just not done. Over here it seemed the foreign dudes bike was fair game. Jostein heard the engine kick in and yelled “Duck” as he dropped to the floor. The last thing he heard before the boom was “Peking?” and then the Mirage let off it’s little party pooper and there were body parts everywhere. Fortunately those closest to the bike had been Octagon’s buddies and that wrapped up the fight. But the pieces of bike and splinter frame casing had made a right mess of everyone within 10 metres and not been overly kind to those standing without cover within 20.

Upon reflection, the Red Eyes had looked a little pissed when they dropped him off and he was pretty sure the phrase “Donucombak” was not an invitation to race again tomorrow…anyway his bike was wrecked…. ah well shopping tomorrow.. those Red Eyes might be feeling friendlier tomorrow!

Aztlan National News [ANN]–06/12/73“Deputies and people of Aztlan. Today, a time of injustice and terror draws to an end, and a time of momentous decision comes upon us. In these serious times, I speak to you, Deputies, as the representatives of the Aztlan Nation.

Three days ago, a group of covert agents infiltrated the Aztechnology Business Complex in Bogotá, with the intent to commit sabotage and terrorism there. Although these agents were swiftly apprehended by Aztechnology security forces, they managed to release a chemical weapon which killed sixty-two Aztlan citizens, although they doubtlessly aimed to inflict greater casualties.

Today, I regret to announce that these terrorist have confessed and been identified beyond any doubt as members of the Amazonian military, acting under orders. This is but the latest in a series of cowardly and unprovoked attacks against our interests and citizens.

All through our relationship with Amazonia, we have acted in the interests of peace and prosperity for both our nations. Time and time again, we have been repaid with provocation, aggression and treason. The cartel of Dragons, spirits and other dangerous and insidious creatures that has usurped leadership of Amazonia from its people has finally gone too far. I have not sought war. To the contrary, I have done everything to avoid conflict. But I would forget my duty and my conscience if I were to do nothing in spite of the realization that a conflict had become unavoidable. For the protection and benefit of the citizens of both our nations, we have no choice but to wage war on Amazonia with all the means of power at our disposal, to a victorious conclusion.

Our enemies must not deceive themselves! In the 7,000 years of Aztlan history known to us, our people have never been more united than today! The Lord Huitzilopochtli has treated us so well in the past years that we bow in gratitude to a providence which has allowed us to be members of such a great nation. We thank Him that we also can be entered with honour into the ever-lasting book of Aztlan history!"
— Enrico Silva, President and Revered Speaker of Aztlan

SEVENTHVICTIMFOUNDNew York Times [NYT]–04/28/73SEATTLE, UCAS: A body was discovered last night in Downtown, Seattle. Though the police are staying quiet about the particulars, they have conﬁ rmed that the unnamed victim did die in the same manner as previous victims found throughout Seattle in the past few weeks. This is the seventh victim to be found of the serial killer some periodicals have taken to calling the Fahrenheit killer, after rumors surfaced of the victims all being burned in identical, yet peculiar ways. Seven weeks, seven corpses, and still no answers from Lone Star. According to one local reporter, this is a case Lone Star doesn’t want to solve. “There has been a lot of serious criminal activity happening her over the past few months, most of it centering around the explosion of Tempo. Police don’t have the time to think about a murderer who is targeting lower-class victims.” Local authorities refused to comment for this article.

REPORTERDIES IN KOWLOONMASSACREMetaLife [Evo]–05/13/71HONKKONG, HKFEZ: Reporter Ryan Doyle was interviewing local orks and trolls in Hong Kong’s poorest district when he was caught in a ﬂash-riot that erupted between two of the local gangs, both involved in the drug trade. Caught between both sides, Ryan bravely made a live feed broadcast of the battle, continuing his efforts even after being shot. Ryan Doyle died of blood loss thirty-three minutes into the battle, his eyecameras still streaming trideo footage until their battery back-ups died. That footage represents the only record of the Kowloon Massacre. We at Fomorian Times salute Brother Doyle for his noble effort to bear witness to this tragic loss of metahuman lives. Doyle is survived by his wife and three sons. * Read More *

> The Walled City is a creepy place at the best of times, and you don’t need to be a whiz to feel it. When the Triads started going at each other and dozens of civilians got caught in the crossfire, it woke up things that had better been left alone. I don’t care how much the job pays, just avoid that place at all costs until further notice.

Ears ringing from the blast, Ollie stands up unsteadily, leaning on his axe. A quick inspection finds his extremities mostly still attached, his armor and thick Troll hide heavily peppered with shrapnel. The two Jaguar Warriors protecting the mage weren’t so lucky, their bodies sprawled on the cavern floor like broken dolls. Of the mage, only a pair of legs remain. The blast hasn’t been kind to the tiger either. Back in human form, she is slumped against the remains of a crate. Several of her ribs are showing, and half of her face is a mess of meat and shrapnel. A sliver of metal slowly slides out of her ruined eye socket, to bounce on the floor.

Jostein and Sarah seem to be shouting, gesticulating at something behind Ollie.

Oh.

Pierced in several places, the metal suitcase is rapidly disappearing below the murky waters. Laying down on the pier, Ollie barely manages to catch it, his long troll arm reaching shoulder-deep in the water.

Sarah checks the pulse on Thanyalak: it’s weak and erratic. Her wounds are slowly closing down, bits of shrapnel plopping out of her body, but she’s not stirring.

Feeling something cold against her forehead, Sonora opens her eyes for a very close look at the barrel of Snoop’s gun. She sighs and closes her eyes again, she’s had a rough couple of months.

Back in the warehouse, Frosty and Samriel are waiting for the runners. The Ancients have redecorated the place.. in red. It seems they also found a fridge full of beers somewhere and are passing them around.

Samriel blanches when he sees the mangled suitcase. Frosty seems mostly relieved to find the runners coming back in one piece. While Jostein and Ollie keep an eye on Samriel, the rest of you inspect the Sextant. It looks like a short staff with an armillary sphere of interlocking rings at it’s end. One of the outer rings has broken off. At the center of the rings is a small ball of a withe substance, holding a dull, dark blue gem in int’s center. The rings are covered in a script none of you recognize.

Jane nods, grimly, and closes the suitcase again. “Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad. In any case, our employer will pay you. After facing down a blood mage, that’s the least he can do. Let’s head down to the airport right away… You got a problem with that, Samriel?”

Samriel’s chromed eyes linger a bit too long on the suitcase, then he gives a very slight nod and walks away.

*******************************************

Frosty tells you to stop at a private entrance to the “corporate” airstrip area of the John Wayne airport. She sends a coded message to the guard booth, and the double gates slowly slide open. You’re waved through by guards in flashy Horizon uniforms.

In the corporate area, Frosty directs you to a waiting plane. It’s a sleek little executive jet, without any markings.

“That’s my ride. I wish I could offer you guys a lift, but I’m not heading your way. I’ll transfer your payment now—” she pauses, and a second later your account balance reflects a nice
sized deposit.

“Anyway. Thanks for your help. You guys did great. Really. I know I wasn’t much use, but thanks for the help. I’ve got your number, you’ve got mine … so I’ll be in touch.“

“Here’s the number for a pilot. She’s got a plane ready somewhere around here. She can get you home—a nice straight flight. Oh, and if you don’t want to go back home right away—the
concierge at the Mountain, here in Orange County, is a fellow named Rafael. He owes me a big favor. If you guys want to cash in on it, I’m sure he can get you a suite there—on the house, so to speak. If you need to lay low, you might as well do so in the lap of luxury, right?”

To the winner: The spoils.
- For the last session and taking down the blood mage: 10 karma.
- 45 000 nuyen each as payment from Frosty: 15 000 per person, plus finder’s fee for the sextant of 150 000 split between the team members. No bonus payment because the sextant was damaged.
- Thanyalak will be out cold for a couple of days until the piece of shrapnel lodged inside her skull comes out.
- For those who already had Frosty as a contact, she is now loyalty 2, connection 5. Otherwise, she’s loyalty 1.
- Steelsky smuggler clan as a contact. Loyalty 2, connection 4. (Mostly Ork group, operating in the Midwest and West Coast)
- The Ancients, LA Chapter as a Loyalty 1, connection 4 contact.
- Sonora as a Loyalty 2, connection 3 contact (if you let her live)
- A week’s stay fully paid for (breakfast included) at The Mountain, a luxury resort and golf club near Fun City, in Orange county.
- Free ride back to Seattle when you want it.

A.k.a. Ollie gets a job!

Okay… test… hello? Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m talking about this. Seems like a bad idea, but if I end up face down on some asphalt one day maybe this might be useful. At worst it’ll be some drek to keep some bored shmuck entertained on the toilet.

So last week we get a call on a job. Usual deal. Meet some stiff at some club, blah blah blah you get the idea. Anyway, the place we end up meeting is Club Infinity. Never been, I’d rather let a dire bear frag me before going back there. Holograms everywhere and every one jacked in with dead looks on their face. Not my kind of place. I’ll take a classic dive bar any day. To me you can’t trust a place unless you can see the shotgun behind the bar. You know?

Anyway, we all go there one by one for some reason. I think some people take running too seriously. It’s a fracking club; people are expected to go there. The Johnson is the typical sort: private room, all you can drink and the usual perks. He doesn’t grace us with a personal appearance; uses a fracking hologram like the rest of the wackos in the place. The gig is legit with a decent payout. Jostein, that poli lovin’ asshole, manages to be useful and kicks up the pay to a cool ¥120k.

So now comes the catch. The job is to off some breeder that’s been in a coma for 9 years. I got no problem with wetwork but what’s the deal with offing some guy who’s been a veg for years already? The Johnson must have some serious bug way up where the credit stick don’t shine. I’m not one to complain though. Soy burgers don’t pay for themselves and this troll needs his 6-8 burger fix.

On a side note, Stuffershack can go frag themselves if they think people don’t notice that they are making the soy burger patties smaller. It used to be that I could get 7 or 8 soy burgers and be good for dinner. Now I need like 10 or 12! And surprise surprise these “new” smaller patties still cost the same. FRAGTHAT.

Rustling noises…

Is this still on? Hello? Okay…

So yeah, grease some guy in a coma. Turns out he was some Matrix wiz who probably was jacked in during the last big crash and got dumped hard. The Johnson wants the death to be “natural”. A gunshot to the head is natural right? Anyway, this is all drek, I need to get to the good part.

So the veg is up in this fancy DocWagon clinic in Tacoma. We scout the place and there’s the usual stuff: spirits, magical barriers, cameras, guards, assault teams, sensors… the usual for a corp facility like this. Pretty much means we need to go in quiet. No need to get on the bad side of a corp. While scoping the place one of the hackers gets a brainwave to get one of us on the inside; which means me. BAM. Just like that I’m a legit corp drone doing security for DocWagon.

Guess what… IT’S BULLDREK. First day what do I do? I stand on the FRAGGINGPIER all morning watching for… stuff. No fragging clue what the point of doing that was. After wasting my morning on the FRAGGINGPIER I head out for lunch and catch up with the team to let them know what’s up. After I lunch I head back. Jostein and Balrog show up a bit later at the DocWagon clinic pretending to be clients. I’m stuck on the FRAGGINPIER again so I don’t know exactly what Balrog and Jostein are doing. The upshot was that I had access to the basic security feeds so the team could see what was going on without risking another hack.

...where Jostein avoids all fights

So yea, bit of a strange day, you know, one of those days when everything seems to go right, and yet you feel a bit sick, not quite ready to celebrate and really not sure if that’s the right thing to do.

Lets face it, it’s not every day you hand over a fellow human to a bunch of nuts that run a “help the underprivileged scum” club, but I guess if I look it at as a kind of charitable donation to animals in need of homes, then I don’t feel so sick, well there is the other side of that business that makes me feel good about it, but yeat it’s weird.

So damn today was pretty interesting all around, first some black suit bastards come to storm my shack, I wish I could have set up a little gift for them but I reckon with my skill with explosives I’d have blown myself up. Avoided those bastards with no trouble at all and then some wacko summoned a bloody fire spirit right in front of me as I was tanking down the highway at 120. Out with the hammer and we blew right through the thing, BOOM! Bat out of HELLBABY!! Burnt my hair a bit but BOOM! Yea don’t mess with Jostein! After that hooked up with that dumb Troll Ollie and we set about keeping the Blood Mage sedated… shit got really messed up after that. We dumped the mage in Ollies care at Exec Parking, sedated him and I headed off to the Cat Girls place to see if she had any food, my place no doubt having burnt down by now. Anyway Cat Girl was in, even had some Tuborg, not that export shit either! The Orc was there, her place had also been trashed, so we headed down there to check it out.

So short version, we’re about wrapping up checking out the place when a bloody attack chopper turns up…not sure what happened after that as I decided that even with my awesome skills, taking down an attack chopper on the same day as a fire spirit might be pushing the edge a bit! So i bugged out. Met up later with the crew “Smart Troll” turned out to be not so smart, he got nailed by the chopper, though that bastard is tough I give him that. barely scratched!!! So we headed into ACHE, not a nice placem boring, depressing, made my dump look like bloody heaven!

Anyway Thursday rolls around, I bug out to meet Ollie and and get the deal done….it went suspiciously well. No one got shot and we even got a new job offer, overseas too! Seems like it might be a good idea to take it, give the AZTEC Boot boys a bit of time to chill. Anway the animal rights guys seemed to like their gift, I’m pretty sure Ollie liked his….who can tell, he has the facial expression of a glacier!

Right, 24 hours to shop, then it’s meeting time and we’re out of this place…I need some SIMS!

So turns out the krauts aren’t the bad guys after all but how were we supposed to know that at the time! I’m getting ahead of myself aren’t I? Yea well so there’s the big fight at the hospital, I missed most of that. Bit of fancy wall crawling came in handy when some nasty zombie like things came up the stairs, took the head near clean off one of them, didn’t blink, so the wall crawl fast became a good option.

Anyway, lots of farting around later we find out where the guy we’re looking for is meant to be hanging out. So we rock on out there, I do a few laps and find that the warehouse opposite the place we need to hit is chock full of krauts, all putting guns at me, not very friendly.

So we decide to make a house call, size them up, that’s when we find there’s loads of them and they are after the same nutter that we are, but they want to pay us chump change to help them…negotiations were going badly when the krauts mages return…in pieces! Rock on, the talk is off, it’s hammer time!

Big nasty zombie things, covered in all kinds of blood, well shit, I take no time at all in doing in some summoned freak thing and then I’m in on this blood mage thing! Wham Wham! Some bastard firing bullets into the melee…I’ll deal with that later…wham, oh yea it’s show time, blood mage farts out a few weak spells which I laugh at and ….that’s when I had a bloody horrifying thought!!! Right before that big oaf Troll almost takes the bastard mages head off! Next thing I’m learning First Aid on the spot trying to stop the bugger from bleeding out…it’s pay day baby!!! ALLDAYLONG!!! So anyway the rest of the crew bugger off to deal with the main target, but I have calls to make, lots of calls!!!!